Don Mario: “In seven years we will be launching soybeans obtained by NBT”

Last Friday (Sep.7), in the Sheraton Pilar resort, the leading soybean breeders from Argentina, Don Mario Semillas, did its annual convention signed by the “binary revolution”, or the digitalization of the farming.

Agronomists, farmers and dealers filled the conference room, where the Latam General Manager, Obdulio San Martin, opened the meeting celebrating the launch of Don Mario soybean brand in the US market.”After years of hard work in the US we are proud to reach this objective. It shows the level of the Argentine breeding network, and that our country has too many opportunities if clear and stables rules were established”, San Martín says.

Marcos Quiroga, the Global Investigation Manager, appointed that Don Mario is working in developing gene edition in the framework of the New Breeding Technologies (NBT). “This will permit us to improve the genetic yield gain at a major rate that we obtained in the last ten years. By this reason, we are investing in the construction of a genetic lab in Londrina, Brazil; we expect that new commercial varieties obtained by NBT will be in the market in the next seven years”, Quiroga said. “There, we will develop new varieties, with tolerance against herbicides, insects or abiotic factors like drought”, the Communication Manager, Joaquin Lopetegui (photo), added.

Asociados Don Mario is a family-owned breeding company, established in the middles ’80 in Chacabuco, Buenos Aires Province. Leading by Gerardo Bartolome, in the early years, the company introduced varieties from US, after testing in field plots in Argentina. Then, the company established its own soybean breeding program and started the expansion to South America.

Currently, Don Mario operates in the Latam, South Africa and the US markets. In this last country, after twelve years of comprehensive R+D and yield testing, the company landed with 3 breeding station, 300,000 testing plots and a 42 members team. The name of the US branch is Burrus Seed.

“Our goal is to reach a 3% market share to 2022. Farmers plant 35 million hectares of soybean each season, that represents 60 million bags of 40 kilograms each one. Considering that in the Argentine market we only sell 3 million bags, (due to the brown bag or illegal channel), US market is a huge opportunity for us”, San Martin told to the local Infobae website.